This really dates me, but the horror movie that had the biggest effect on me was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. I saw it when I was far too young on TV in the middle of the afternoon, many years after it was released. It scared the crap out of me and I was terrified to shower for years. What a brilliant psychological study of a character that was.
The odd thing is that I ended up in a sort of Janet Leigh role in Psycho 3 - although I don’t think too many people developed a fear of ice machines over my character’s murder.
I feel like the synchronicity continued when I got a part in Hitchcock-Legacy, Brian DePalma’s Scarface. Brian carried on Hitchcock’s tradition to such a degree I feel like Hitchcock’s influence has had a thread all through my career too, as the first movie I wrote and directed was called Stripped to Kill as a homage to Dressed to Kill, and then I ended up directing Carrie 2 and had to be approved by DePalma.
Psycho started it all for me and I wonder if the thread will continue through the rest of my career!